Page 550 - swanns-way

his wives, stabbed her, in order, as his Venetian biographer
artlessly relates, to recover his spiritual freedom. Then he
would be ashamed of thinking thus only of himself, and his
own sufferings would seem to deserve no pity now that he
himself was disposing so cheaply of Odette’s very life.
Since he was unable to separate himself from her without
a subsequent return, if at least he had seen her continuous-
ly and without separations his grief would ultimately have
been assuaged, and his love would, perhaps, have died. And
from the moment when she did not wish to leave Paris for
ever he had hoped that she would never go. As he knew that
her one prolonged absence, every year, was in August and
September, he had abundant opportunity, several months
in advance, to dissociate from it the grim picture of her
absence throughout Eternity which was lodged in him by
anticipation, and which, consisting of days closely akin to
the days through which he was then passing, floated in a
cold transparency in his mind, which it saddened and de-
pressed, though without causing him any intolerable pain.
But that conception of the future, that flowing stream,
colourless and unconfined, a single word from Odette suf-
ficed to penetrate through all Swann’s defences, and like a
block of ice immobilised it, congealed its fluidity, made it
freeze altogether; and Swann felt himself suddenly filled
with an enormous and unbreakable mass which pressed
on the inner walls of his consciousness until he was fain to
burst asunder; for Odette had said casually, watching him
with a malicious smile: ‘Forcheville is going for a fine trip at
Whitsuntide. He’s going to Egypt!’ and Swann had at once

550 Swann’s Way